Five Years in the Basement: Reclaiming My Worth After His Lies

I spent five years with Julian.

From the time I was twenty-two until I turned twenty-seven, I ate cheap instant ramen with hot sauce beside him, lived in a windowless basement apartment, and never even dared to ask for a single bouquet of flowers.

He always said, "Once we save enough for a down payment on a house, we’ll get married."

I believed him.

Yet every year when we got close to our target, an emergency would magically appear:

His uncle got into a car crash and needed settlement money.

His mother was diagnosed with severe diabetes and had to be hospitalized.